City of Phantoms
by Songbird of the End
Summary: Lonely as I am, together we cry. Oneshot. Alternate TUE ending.


_Sometimes I feel like I don't have a partner  
Sometimes I feel like my only friend  
Is the city I live in, the city of angels  
Lonely as I am, together we cry_

_I drive on her streets 'cause she's my companion  
I walk through her hills 'cause she knows who I am  
She sees my good deeds and she kisses me windy  
I never worry, now that is a lie_

_Well, I don't ever wanna feel like I did that day  
Take me to the place I love, take me all the way  
I don't ever wanna feel like I did that day  
Take me to the place I love, take me all the way  
Yeah, yeah, yeah_

_It's hard to believe that there's nobody out there  
It's hard to believe that I'm all alone  
At least I have her love, the city she loves me  
Lonely as I am, together we cry_

_Well, I don't ever wanna feel like I did that day  
Take me to the place I love, take me all the way  
Well, I don't ever wanna feel like I did that day  
Take me to the place I love, take me all the way  
Yeah, yeah, yeah_

_Hold me, oh no, no, yeah, yeah  
Love me, I say yeah, yeah  
(Under the bridge downtown)  
(Is where I drew some blood)  
Is where I drew some blood_

_(Under the bridge downtown)  
(I could not get enough)  
I could not get enough_

_(Under the bridge downtown)  
(Forgot about my love)  
Forgot about my love_

_(Under the bridge downtown)  
(I gave my life away)  
I gave my life away_

_Yeah, yeah, yeah  
(Away)  
No, no, no, yeah, yeah  
(Away)  
No, no, I say, yeah, yeah  
(Away)  
Here I stay._

_Under the Bridge_, by the Red Hot Chili Peppers

* * *

The wind blew softly through his hair, and lazy green eyes watched the sky's transition from a blaze of colors to bruised pruple. Much like the people he watched over—they turned red sometimes too. The red would always disappear after a while though, replaced by brown-black, by their regular color, or by the same deep purple overcoming the sky.

He remembered he didn't like it when the red would leave the humans and splatter on the ground, so he tried to make sure that didn't happen as often as it could. They were always accompanied by ringing shreiks he could still hear for a long time afterward and more flashes of red and a few of blue.

He remembered he liked purple, but not the dark hue in the sky. No, he liked the one that sparkled and glittered, but he couldn't find it anymore. He wondered where it had gone.

With barely a thought, the solid base beneath him retreated, the people and the noises getting farther away. Unnaturally bright eyes looked at them now, no bigger than ants, until a white something enveloped him and hid the people from view.

The people down there were not like him.

Everything they touched got in their way. He remembered, when he was surrounded by blazing reds and oranges and _fear_, he had to pull the trapped people through the solids around him. The fear increased whenever he did this, and they had been forced to stay away from the dancing yellow when he had calmly walked through it. It became apparent they couldn't exit the way he could, otherwise he wouldn't have had to rescue them.

He had seen, also, when hiding in a room where the people were in straight rows and columns. Two were out of order, one off to the side and the other in front of the assembled people. The one in front gave off so much nervousness and fear he had had to stay at the back of the room to keep it from affecting him. He wondered why, if the person didn't want to be seen, the person didn't just fade out of sight. When he extended a bit of his power to help the person out, all he got was an instantaneous smack by the surprise and confusion in the room.

His eyes opened, unsure of when he closed them, and the white thing was gone. He slipped through the air back down to the noise and the soft lights. The presences of the people made him shift a little off the plane invlountarily. He wanted to outrun his thoughts, and thought if he went fast enough he just might accomplish it.

He remembered, too, that all humans have a field around them made of their feelings. The field couldn't keep all their emotions penned in, and the result was a warm glow like the ones the humans had in their buildings that gave off light. They reminded him of paper lanterns that he had seen hanging somewhere. It was what separated the people he protected from the people he fought.

The people he fought were not like him, either.

They didn't have the fields of humans that contained their feelings that lashed out without restraint. He didn't like the dark red hate that the humans aparently couldn't see but feel. He didn't like it when the hate hit a person and that field and everything inside it dimmed—

(He remembered the extinguishment of several fields had ripped a large hole out of himself, and the sudden agony made his eyes go wet and a pressure in his chest rip out of his mouth that even the humans could hear. That was from Before, but thinking about it reopened the wound and made water run down his face.)

Some of the ones without the empathic shield weren't dark red and instead wove through the air around himself. Some were bright yellow excitement, some cool green understanding, some warm brown friendship, and some were even a dreary blue. He didn't understand why they would be sad for him. Did something happen in the Before?

That was another thing. None of the people he fought remembered their Before. He remembered he had been a special case, though. Unique.

A bright green and yellow appeared in the space in front of him, soothing him with its familiarity. None of the people he protected could feel it, but the city itself was almost alive. Simply coming close to the solids would allow him to feel the imprint left on it by its inhabitants. He liked this house the best because it was one of the few that radiated only happiness and a warm something that enveloped him and entered him and made him feel all warm and fuzzy inside. He couldn't remember the name for it anymore.

But that was okay. He was here now, so he didn't have to think anymore.

He shifted more out of phase with the world as he passed through the warm brick, feeling more at ease when some warmth buried itself into his chest. He saw on the other side white and blue and a rectangle of yellow, but the only emotions were positive. Here, color were just colors and feelings were just feelings, two completely unrelated objects separated forever more.

There was another reason he liked this house: it showed up frequently in the flashes from the Before. Sometimes he was entering through the window, sometimes he was eating breakfast, sometimes he was running down to the lab.

He blinked, processing what the newest flash had been about. Yes… there was a door in the kitchen leading down into a lab. He floated over to the yellow rectangle, leading him into a room filled with yellow and white. He hesitated, then drifted trhough the floor into an entirely grey room. A plethora of emotions were down here: excitement, bafflement, fear, pain, caution, relief, anticipation, disappointment, irritation, defeat, and triumph. His head swirled in the whirlpool of emotions and his body moved on its own, placing his thumb on something. Then he was staring into a familiar spectral whirlpool.

Down here. Yes, this is where the Before began. Over in where the dark patch was replaced by living-unliving green. The next memory was of fearful turqoise and concernced violet, the same one he liked that went away and _where did it go?_

There was another flash, though, that wanted to surface. It called him, pulled him up through a three floors of solid material before he shifted back into phase with this world. Startling green eyes swept over the blurred skyline, not understanding what he was supposed to be seeing. Something familiar twisted, felxing a muscle that hadn't been used in a while and the world slid into sharp focus. He took a step back in surprise at the sharp look reality had taken, even in the late sunset. No, wait, it was sunrise now, the light was on the other side of the city.

His eyes shifted over to the docks on their own, and he shuddered. He had been avoiding that area ever since the Before ended. Though it was true the place also exuded emotion and understanding, whenever he went there he felt inexplicably cold. His eyes closed against his will as the last scene from Before played in front of his eyes _were looking down at a knife, held loosely in his hand. The day had been overcast and the night was dark, not even the moon and the stars he loved so much could bear witness to what he would do. But that didn't matter, he could see just fine in the dark._

_His footsteps across the dock were quiet, but he payed no mind to them. Instead, he was caught up in memories of a sunrise on that same dock when he was sitting with the three people he trusted the most in this world._

_But it didn't matter anymore. Not since they died because of one of his mistakes._

_He didn't go to Vlad; he wouldn't let himself become the horrible monster that started all this. He thought he was strong enough, but once the reality set in that they were really _gone_ and not coming back he broke. But he would make sure that future never happened. That was what he promised as his friends and family were blown to bloody bits in the remains of a restaurant they would always hang out in._

_And he always kept his promises. Or he would die trying._

_He reached the end of the pier. The water lapped quietly against the supports, greedily waiting for its gift. The night air was cold, but his half-ghost body was usually at a dangerously low tmperature for normal humans. He took a few steps forward until he stood precariously on the wooden edge before he lifted the knife so it was poised over his heart slowly beat and empty blue eyes closed forever._

_His last thoughts were wonderings about what would happen when he died._

At least know he knew.

He was strong in the Before, fearless. The flashes had told him that much. All that seemed to leave though, when he… he forced himself to finish the thought. When he killed himself. Who he was in the Before had been so strong and even he had fallen.

But… something felt wrong. He remembered the last time he felt this way was when—

_His last words weren't a final wish. They were a silent growl, reinforced by simmering emerald eyes._

"_Protect them."_

—a flash from Before was interrupted. His own brilliant emerald eyes blinked, silently wondering where that final burst of courage came from to try and order around something he had no control over. The him from Before had truly viewed death as a way to clear the slate.

And who was he now? A nameless phantom, a ghost of his former self, and a coward, only helping the humans because of ingrained instincts and the fear that if their bubbles would pop, he wouldn't be able to put himself back together again.

On some level, he was sick of it. Tired of being overly cautious. When the other him had split himself, he wanted to get rid of the sadness. When the him from Before split himself, he had given everything up to give the fledgling ghost a proper chance at the afterlife, albeit because of a thought he had come up with while depressed.

A knight who couldn't protect anyone was better off dead.

No, he wasn't at all courageous like in the Before. But maybe, just maybe, he could take a few peeks at the Before. Just to slowly ease himself into the pool of what exactly happened during the odd period of half-death.

The night air around him cooled down to a familiar temperature and a puff of ice cold mist exited his mouth. His eyes, bright and sharp, were already looking for the ghostly glow in the sharp edges of the city. Spotting a familiar, floating green octopus, he placed one white boot on the small wall enclosing the rooftop and pushed off, flying after the apparition in the brightening sky.

But, it would have to be later. His city of phantoms needed him.

* * *

A/N: This came completely out of left field, I swear. Inspired by Under the Bridge by the Chilis, as the lyrics say at the beginning. I'm pretty sure Amity doesn't even have a bridge, but if it did, Danny would've committed suicide there. Some of the ending could have been planned better and made a lot more sense, but I'm tired of tinkering with it. I think everything's pretty self-explanatory, but if you need me to clear some things up, feel free to ask. I apologize if I've misspelled anything, Spellcheck was on the fritz. (Psst, there's DannyxSam if you squint real hard!)

As always, please leave a review. Twon't take long at all.

**Disclaimer**: I do not own the Red Hot Chili Peppers, their lyrics, or any characters in Danny Phantom. All belong to someone richer and older than me. No copyright infringement intended.


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